IV
They arrived in New York at six o’clock that evening. Amos met them at the train. They hardly recognized him in his silk hat, long overcoat, stylish necktie, and kid gloves. Joel did not approve of what he considered a rather dudish dress, but he overlooked that when he saw how happy the young man was at the sight of his mother.
“I wish I could invite you to my house, Mr. Lowry,” said Amos, cordially, “but the truth is, we have only a small flat, and there is hardly room for you.”
“Oh, never mind me,” said Joel. “I’m a-goin’ to a tavern nigh whar I do my tradin’. I ’ll tell you good day now, but I ’ll run in an’ see ef Mis’ Gibbs has any word to send back when I start home.”
He did not see her again for a week. He had concluded his purchases, and was ready to return South, when he decided to look her up. Finding her was more difficult than he had imagined. After several hours’ search on the east side of the city, she being on the west, he finally reached the big building which contained Amos’s flat. Here he became involved in another mystery, for he found the front door, a glistening plate-glass affair, firmly locked, and no bell in sight. He stood in the tiled vestibule for several minutes deliberating on what was best to do. Fortunately, he saw a policeman passing, and hailed him.
“I’ve got a friend a-livin’ somewhar in this shebang,” he said; “but you may hang me ef I know how to git at ‘im.”
“Is his name on one of the letter-boxes?” asked the policeman.
“What letter-boxes?” questioned Joel. “I hain’t seed no names.”
With an amused aspect of countenance the policeman mounted the steps and went into the vestibule. Here he opened some wooden doors in the wall, disclosing to view a long row of letter-boxes with the cards of their owners beneath them.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked, kindly.
“Amos Gibbs. I’ve knowed ’im ever sence he was a little—”
“There,” interrupted the policeman. “I pushed the button. That rang a bell inside, and they will open the door by electricity if anybody is at home. When you hear the latch clicking, push the door open and go in.”
He disappeared down the street, and then Joel was roused from apathetic helplessness by a rapid clicking in the lock. He opened the door and went in. It was fortunate that Amos lived on the first floor, or even then Joel would not have known how to proceed farther. As it was, another door at the end of the heavily carpeted hall opened and a servant girl in white cap and apron put out her head.
“Yes,” she said, in answer to his inquiry. Mrs. Gibbs was at home, He followed her into a little parlor facing the street, with a single window. It was furnished more neatly than any room Joel had ever been in. The polished hardwood floor was covered with rugs of various kinds and sizes, and the room contained a bookcase, an upright piano, pictures, and pieces of bric-a-brac such as the store-keeper had never seen.
Mrs. Gibbs entered from the dining-room in the rear. Her hair was done up in a new style, which made her head appear larger than usual, and she wore a shining black silk gown that added height, dignity, and youth to her general aspect. She gave him her hand, and her whole attire rustled as she sat down.
“Well, you got heer at last,” she said. “I ‘lowed you never would come. I’ve been lookin’ fer you every day. I hain’t hardly done anything else sence I got heer.”
Joel stared, flushed, and tensely folded his hands anew. It seemed to him that he would not have suffered such a dire lack of words if she had not been looking so fine. It was as if his stalwart masculinity were a glaring misfit among the dainty gewgaws about him. He was mortally afraid the slender gilded chair he was sitting on would break under his two hundred weight. He had never imagined that dress could make such a change in the appearance of any one. The only features about her which seemed natural were her voice and a triangular bit of her wrinkled face which showed through her low-parted hair.
“I come as soon as I got through,” he heard himself say; and then he cleared his throat from a great depth as an apology for the frailty of his tone.
“I kin see you think I’m a sight to behold,” she laughed, merrily. “Sally fixed me up this-a-way: She fluted my hair with a hot curlin’ fork, an’ combed it like the New York women’s. She hain’t done one thing sence I come but haul out dresses an’ fixin’s that used to belong to ’er dead mother, an’ try ’em on me, an’ they’ve kept me on the move tell I’d give a sight fer jest one little nap whar thar wasn’t so much clatter. Last night they give me a old woman’s party. Joel, jest think of a person o’ my age a-settin’ up tell ‘leven o’clock talkin’ to a gang o’ gray-haired women like a passel o’ hens jest off the’r nests! An’ jest when I ‘lowed they was all goin’ home, Sally passed around things to eat an’ drink.”
“They wanted to make you have a good time,” ventured the storekeeper.
The widow lowered her voice, and threw a furtive glance toward the dining-room.
“But it ain’t the way to make a woman o’ my raisin’ enjoy a visit,” she said, cautiously. “I don’t dare to say a word, fer Amos seems tickled to death over all that Sally gits up; but, Joel, I’m mighty nigh dead. Like a born idiot, I told ’em in my last letter that I’d stay three months, an’ now, as the Lord is my help an’ stay, I don’t believe I can make out another week.”
Her voice faltered. Moisture glistened in her eyes.
“I hope it ain’t as bad as that,” remarked Joel, in a tone of vast sympathy.
“It’s jest awful,” whimpered the widow. “I make so many fool blunders. ‘Tother day they wanted me to go to Brooklyn with ‘em, an’ I jest lied out o’ goin’; an’ as they wanted to take the hired gal along to watch the baby, I agreed to stay at home an’ ‘tend to the house. My Lord, Joel, ef you’ve never been alone in one o’ these contraptions, don’t you ever try it. The hired gal showed me all the different arrangements, an’ what I was to do. When the bell in the back rings you must press the button in the kitchen, an’ when the bell in the front rings, it’s somebody at the side door in the hall. An’ when you hear a shrill whistle out ’n the talkin’-tube in the kitchen, you have to open the end an’ blow an’ then holler through an’ ax what’s wanted. Then ef it’s groceries, ur milk, ur peddlers’ stuff, ur what not, you have to go to the dumb-waiter that fetches things up through a hole in the wall like a well-bucket an’ take the things off. I had a lots o’ trouble. I was busy all the while the family was off at that dumb-waiter. Like a born fool, I didn’t know it tuk stuff to other folks, too, an’ I thought it would save time to set at the dumb-waiter with the door open, an’ take off the things without waitin’ fer ’em to whistle. You never seed the like in all yore life! Before I’d been thar a hour, the kitchen was liter’ly filled with all manner o’ stuff, beer, bad-smellin’ cheese, and oodlin’s an’ oodlin’s o’ milk in bottles. After a while I heerd a fearful racket inside the dumb-waiter. People all the way to the top was a-yellin’ out that somebody had stole the’r things, and the landlord was a-bouncin’ about like a rubber ball, an’ talkin’ of callin’ in the police. Finally he come in an’ axed me about it. He fixed it all right fer me, and delivered the goods to their rightful owners, an’ promised not to tell Amos nur Sally what I’d done.”
“You did sorter have a time of it,” said Joel. “I’m no hand myse’f to understand new fixin’s. It’s been chilly the last day or so, an’ when I went to my room in the tavern t’other night I noticed that it was powerful warm after I went to bed. I got up an’ struck a light, but thar wasn’t a sign of a fireplace in the room, an’ it was so hot I ‘lowed thar might be a conflagration a-smolderin’ som ‘ers. So I put on my things an’ went down to the office. They explained to me that the heat comes frum a furnace below, an’ runs into the rooms through holes in the floor. They come up an’ shet mine off so as I could sleep.”
“It’s a heap nicer our way,” said the widow, without a smile at his misadventure. “I tell you, Joel, I jest can’t stand it. I want to go back. When are you a-goin’?”
“In the mornin’.”
She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt and took out her handkerchief, placing it to her eyes.
“Oh, I’m heartily sick of it all!” she whimpered. “You are the fust rail natural thing I’ve laid eyes on sence I come. Sally is mighty cleanly, an’ I’d ax you to clean the mud off ’n yore feet, but it’s the fust muddy feet I’ve seen in so long I want to look at ‘em.”
Joel glanced down at his boots and flushed. “I never noticed ‘em,” he stammered. “I had sech a time a-gittin’ in this shebang.”
“Lord, it don’t matter, Joel! I’m jest a-thinkin’ about you a-goin’ home. I simply cayn’t stand it; an’ yet Amos an’ Sally would feel bad ef I went so soon. Amos was sayin’ last night that they would make me have sech a good time that I’d never want to leave ‘em; but la me! this is the fust rail work I’ve done in many a day.
“Well, I must go, I reckon,” Joel said, rising awkwardly and taking his hat from the floor by his chair. “I’m sorry, too, to go back an’ leave you feelin’ so miserable. I wish I could do some ‘n’ to comfort you, but I can’t, I reckon. Good-bye—take keer of yorese’f.”